When Whalen thinks about a cheat meal, he says he sometimes plugs it into the app in order to kill the craving. One night, he was hankering for macaroni and cheese. (To see how a cheat day can actually be beneficial, check out How Eating Pizza Helps You Lose Weight.)

“A one-cup serving came out to I think about 500 calories,” he says. “That’s all it took to make me not have any.”

Too much time on the road led former Atlanta Braves catcher Xan Barksdale to pack on the pounds.

After leaving the professional game to become a coach, Barksdale found himself working 80-hour weeks and resorting to fast food all too often.

“It’s easy to do what’s convenient,” says Barksdale. “But what’s convenient isn’t usually the right thing.”

Barksdale figured out a way to make healthy options almost as convenient as the drive thru, though: He keeps a cooler full of chicken breasts, hard-boiled eggs, bananas, and protein bars in his truck at all times.

Nutritious options are always within reach, so he’s never tempted to hit up the fast-food chains.

When Lionell Dixon first started heading to the gym, he didn’t know where to start.

He tried cardio machines like the StairMaster, elliptical, and treadmill. But he wasn’t getting the results he wanted.

It wasn’t until he enlisted the help of a gym-rat friend that Dixon started trying new things like weightlifting and jumping rope. His body began to change.

“Jump rope is one of my favorites,” says Dixon. “Sometimes I’ll speed it up for 30 seconds or a minute straight, then rest for 10 to 20 seconds and hop back into it.”

It took Dixon over a year to find his groove in the gym, but he says he’s finally found a routine he looks forward to doing every day. Aside from jump rope, Dixon also lifts weights and hits a heavy bag.

(For an intense fat-burning workout you can do right in your living room, try METASHRED EXTREME, the latest fitness program from Men’s Health.)

When he realized he would see his wife again in 6 months, he snapped back into action. The idea of being reunited with her pushed him to get in the gym and start shedding the weight during the second half of his year at Thule.

“I didn’t want her to see me like this,” Hollingsworth says.

By the time he returned home, he was a new man—in a good way.

Image courtesy of Jonathan Coffman

Weight-loss tip #5: Change one small thing at a time

Name: Jonathan Coffman
Age: 28
Weight lost: 302 pounds in 2 years

Jonathan Coffman’s heart doctor said he’d be surprised if Coffman made it to age 35 because of his weight. Coffman clocked in at 510 pounds at the time.

Frierson often works 10-hour shifts, so having his meals ready to eat makes the difference between a healthy dinner and a quick, calorie-laden fix. (Here are more foods that are guaranteed to keep you full all day long.)

Image courtesy of Joshua King

Weight-loss tip #7: Vary your workouts

Name: Joshua King
Age: 37
Weight lost: 175 pounds in 1 year

When Joshua King decided to start losing weight, he began with 15 minutes on a stationary bike and 5 minutes on a treadmill.

“Now, I don’t drink every day,” says Briscoe. “If I do drink, I have a glass of wine with my wife at dinner.”

Briscoe says putting away his self-proclaimed “party animal” past was the most important step toward ditching 76 pounds in 9 months. (Find out some other things that can change when you give up drinking alcohol.)

Image courtesy of David Steele

Weight-loss tip #9: Find your motivation

Name: David Steele
Age: 34
Weight lost: 33 pounds in 1 year

After his daughter died just one day after her birth, David Steele had a hard time. His go-to coping mechanism: food.

To find the motivation to take care of himself, he made his workouts a time to remember his daughter. He’d pull her picture up on his phone and keep it in view and listen to a song that reminded him of her while he exercised.

“That’s my time with her,” Steele says. “I look at her and blow her kisses. We know she’s in heaven.”

Steele makes it his goal to burn 528 calories each workout in honor of the day his daughter was born: May 28.

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